Celebrating International Talk Like A Pirate Day With ‘Captain Phillips’ Star Barkhad Abdi

One of the great Hollywood success stories in recent years has been that of Barkhad Abdi, the Somali-born actor whose debut role in Captain Phillips earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor earlier this year. (Find out where you can stream Captain Phillips on GoWatchIt.) While he hasn’t yet nabbed another film role (he’s currently directing his first feature), Abdi surely has the chops to play something other than a Somali pirate. But what if he were to be type-cast as another seafaring renegade? In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate day, I asked my colleague, Jaclyn Kessel, to show us what Abdi might look like in other classic swashbuckling tales.

'Cutthroat Island' may have been a total box-office flop, but maybe it just needed a better cast?

"Not so fast, Kermit. I am the captain now."

Maybe we should replace Christopher Walken with Barkhad Abdi in 'Peter Pan Live!' Look how good he looks as the titular character in 'Hook'!

Can Barkhad Abdi sing? He'd probably sound great doing a duet with Linda Ronstadt in 'The Pirates of Penzance.'

OK, you know we're not too far away from this actually happening in another 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie.